FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 25 



Wednesday Afternoon. 



The afternoon session was presided over by Hon. Geo. B. Horton, 

 of Fruit Ridge, Master of the State Grange, who opened the exercises 

 with a short address. 



The program was enlivened by several songs by the choir of the State 

 Industrial School for Boys, whose efforts received several encores and 

 by a recitation by Mr. Bert Wermnth, who rendered a scene from Shake- 

 speare's ''Brutus and Cassius," in a very acceptable manner. 



INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 



BY HON. GEO. B. HORTON, FRUIT RIDGE. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: — I appreciate the honor conferred upon me 

 through an invitation to preside over your deliberations for a short 

 time. The honor is greater because of the representative character of 

 the assembly and the vital importance to the State of the varied inter- 

 ests represented. We have here the leading thinkers and participants 

 in the promotion of the various branches of that greatest of all produc- 

 tive industries, agriculture. Experts in scientific research and educa- 

 tion including domestic science and economy, practical operators in 

 soil culture, successful live stock breeders and feeders, the best the 

 State affords as producers of fruits, cereals, butter, cheese, and very 

 fittingly the matrons of that greatest of all American institutes, the 

 home, where the results of all labor are finally employed; all here in 

 numbers to make up the personnel of this audience. And this is not 

 all that goes to raise the standard of the practical and the intellectual 

 character of this concourse of people. We live in a land where educa- 

 tional privileges are unexcelled, and being of a progressive stock our 

 people take advantage of this so that reading and thinking is a common 

 employment and this results in a State yeomanry of good general un- 

 derstanding. Prominent amon-g these helpful agencies and as strong 

 supports to our schools are the Farmers' Clubs and Granges of the 

 State, numbering fully 1,000 and holding in the aggregate more than 

 20,000 meetings annually. At each of these meetings privileges are 

 given for reading, reciting, debating and considering questions of a 

 wide range of local and public importance. 



Then we must not overlook our extensive system of Farmers' Insti- 

 tutes, with this grand meeting intended to concentrate the best 

 thoughts and the most practical experiences w'hich have been developed 

 during the year. Moreover, people with such inherent ambitions and 

 such high ideals as are possessed by those who settled and developed 

 our State up to the present proud i)osition among all the states, do 

 not confine their observations and inquiries to their immediate occu- 

 pations and near-by (environments, but, instead, they fully comprehend 

 and exercise the privileges of citizenship and obligations to society. 

 We, therefore, have before us today a large audience of typical Ameri- 

 can people appreciative of all they may and do enjoy, 

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